Blodwyn Pig was a British
blues rock
Blues rock is a fusion music genre that combines elements of blues and rock music. It is mostly an electric ensemble-style music with instrumentation similar to electric blues and rock (electric guitar, electric bass guitar, and drums, sometimes w ...
band, founded in 1968 by guitarist–vocalist–songwriter
Mick Abrahams.
Career
Abrahams left
Jethro Tull after their debut
album, ''
This Was'', was released, due to a falling-out with Tull vocalist
Ian Anderson
Ian Scott Anderson (born 10 August 1947) is a British musician, singer and songwriter best known for his work as the lead vocalist, flautist, acoustic guitarist and leader of the British rock band Jethro Tull. He is a multi-instrumentalist w ...
over the direction of the band. He formed Blodwyn Pig with
Jack Lancaster (
saxophone and
flute
The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is a reedless ...
),
Andy Pyle
Andy Pyle (born 15 July 1946, Luton, Bedfordshire, England) is a British bassist. He played with The Kinks from 1976 to 1978. Prior to that, he was in Blodwyn Pig (1968–1972) and Savoy Brown (1972–1974). Later, he played with Wishbone Ash ...
(
bass guitar), and Ron Berg (
drum
The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel-Sachs classification system, it is a membranophone. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a she ...
s).
With Abrahams and Lancaster in the lead, Blodwyn Pig
recorded two albums, ''
Ahead Rings Out'' in 1969 and ''
Getting to This'' in 1970.
Both reached the
Top Ten of the
UK Albums Chart and charted in the United States; ''Ahead Rings Out'' displayed a jazzier turn on the heavy blues–rock that formed the band's core rooted in the British 1960s
rhythm and blues scene from which sprang groups like
The Yardbirds,
Free
Free may refer to:
Concept
* Freedom, having the ability to do something, without having to obey anyone/anything
* Freethought, a position that beliefs should be formed only on the basis of logic, reason, and empiricism
* Emancipate, to procur ...
and eventually
Led Zeppelin. Saxophonist–singer Lancaster (who often played two horns at once, like his idol
Rahsaan Roland Kirk) was at least as prominent in the mix as Abrahams; some critics thought this contrast bumped the band toward a freer, more experimental sound on the second album.
The
single "Summer Day" failed to
chart
A chart (sometimes known as a graph) is a graphical representation for data visualization, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart". A chart can represent tabu ...
, but the quartet became something of a favourite on the underground concert circuit.
Abrahams left the band and later developed another band or worked solo. Ex-
Yes
Yes or YES may refer to:
* An affirmative particle in the English language; see yes and no
Education
* YES Prep Public Schools, Houston, Texas, US
* YES (Your Extraordinary Saturday), a learning program from the Minnesota Institute for Talente ...
and future
Flash guitarist
Peter Banks became one of several guitarists to succeed Abrahams after he left.
Largely due to Abrahams's disillusionment with the business side of music, Blodwyn Pig eventually became an on-again, off-again concern; Lancaster at one point became a record producer, and Pyle eventually joined
Savoy Brown.
Over the years since their original formation, Blodwyn Pig reformed several times, usually with Abrahams and Lancaster leading the group, and recorded two more albums in the 1990s.
Discography
Singles
* "Dear Jill" / "Sweet Caroline" (Island Records WIP 6059), 1969
* "Walk On The Water" / "Summer Day" (Island Records WIP 6069), 1969
* "Same Old Story" / "Slow Down" (Chrysalis Records WIP 6078), 1970
Studio albums
* ''
Ahead Rings Out'' (
AM/Chrysalis, 1969)
* ''
Getting to This'' (
Chrysalis
A pupa ( la, pupa, "doll"; plural: ''pupae'') is the life stage of some insects undergoing transformation between immature and mature stages. Insects that go through a pupal stage are holometabolous: they go through four distinct stages in their ...
, 1970)
* ''Lies'' (
Angel Air Records, 1994)
* ''Pig-in-the-Middle'' (1996)
Live albums/compilations
* ''All Tore Down: Live'' (1994)
* ''The Modern Alchemist'' (Indigo Records, 1997)
* ''All Said And Done'' (Shakedown Records, 2004) two-
CD 1
DVD boxed set
A box set or (its original name) boxed set is a set of items (for example, a compilation of books, musical recordings, films or television programs) traditionally packaged in a box and offered for sale as a single unit.
Music
Artists and bands ...
* ''The Radio Sessions 1969 to 1971'' (Secret Records, 2012)
* ''All Said And Done'' – Double CD recorded in 2001 at Audiolab Studios
Secret records Repress 2020
References
External links
Mick Abrahams – Blodwyn Pig Official Site
{{Authority control
British blues rock musical groups
Musical groups established in 1968
Island Records artists
A&M Records artists
Chrysalis Records artists
1968 establishments in the United Kingdom
Savoy Brown members